So, a few more thoughts on debt and what it does and doesn’t signify. ...

This is how you want to think about debt: it’s not a burden on the nation’s
resources, because it’s mainly money we owe to ourselves, and it’s a problem
not because we have to tighten our belt but because debt is currently
leading to spending that’s less than we need to maintain full employment.

I would add that ... the ... debt of financial intermediaries ... is a big
part of the real story and if anything bears even less resemblance to
the notion of debt as a consequence of national overspending; to a large
extent it’s just an accounting issue, because old-fashioned deposits aren’t
counted as debt even though they are.

Maybe a short way to put all this is to say that we have a real problem with
excessive leverage; that’s not at all the same thing as the nation being
deeply in hock to some external player or players. And failing to understand
that difference is a way to get both the nature of our crisis and the shape
of appropriate policies totally wrong.